"One AL Assistant GM" thinks Lackey's plane will land in Houston

ESPN.com polled 20 general managers, assistant GMs, personnel people and scouts. And "one AL Assistant GM" says Lackey will end up in Houston, while eight said the Yankees, four said the Mets, three said he'd re-sign with the Angels, while the Dodgers, Astros, Orioles and Brewers received one vote each, and one executive said he has "no idea."

I think this is highly unlikely, as Crasnick's poll puts Lackey's price tag at 3 years/$36 million on the low end and 5 years/$95 million or 6 years/$100 million on the high end. Lackey will use Burnett's 5-year/$82.5 million as a baseline.

However, this AL Assistant GM says Houston is the dark-horse contender:"They need pitching badly, they have money and they need to win."

Obviously, his first and third points are right on, but his second point? That's up for debate.

However, in another ESPN.com article, Buster Olney says Seattle, Texas, and Milwaukee are the dark-horse contenders. How many dark-horse contenders can there be for one free agent?

And SI's Jon Heyman says Lackey is looking for a $100m deal. He also says that Lackey may want to pitch in Texas, but doesn't even mention the Astros as the Texas team for which he may want to pitch. And I'm guessing that Midland doesn't count.

I should probably clear up that it didn't take me seven years to get through college. I worked in Abilene after I graduated...

And it's absolutely possible that Run-DMc will drop that kind of change on Lackey. If they do that, maybe Roy gets his wish and gets dealt somewhere else. But given that it's apparently been decided that payroll will be cut, and that Pence, Wandy and Bourn will get healthy raises, I won't get my hopes up...

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